The Path to Greatness
by Vandun
Summary: Born into the OnePiece world Naruto wishes to become a Legend
1. Chapter 1

Hey everyone Vandun here with my first ever fanfic so don't expect anything to great as this is an experiment, I'm not to sure on how long I will continue this or how long it will take me to update so no expectations k. also no flamers they wont be great for my morale, although i greatly accept criticism and advice

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Onepiece as they are owned by Masashi Kishimoto and Eiichiro Oda respectively…if i did own naruto I'd take a kunai shove it where obito's heart is and wait 5 minutes to see what happens

Its been a rough life for Uzumaki D. Naruto as he and his mother Uzumaki D. Kushina have always been on the move never staying in one place to long or to near civilization, as his mother was an former "pirate" wanted by the marines with a hefty sum of 300,000,000 berries for her head. His mother had started out as a wondering swords woman who had lived by her morals and ethics so this didn't make her popular with the marines when she had killed a marine captain despite him attempting to rape a woman in an alley, She had then evaded capture by killing all those sent to apprehend her. The marines put a bounty out for her thus making her a target from marines to upstart pirates wanting to make a name for them selves to bounty hunters wanting the reward for her capture or death. This continued for a couple of years till his mother had got pregnant with him and embraced motherhood.

Naruto looked at his mothers bounty photo and realized she hadn't changed much since then…well perhaps her eyes have changed as he look to where his mother was an he saw they were filled with kindness and loving affection. He look back to the photo, other then her eyes nothing else had changed as She wore black leather pants, with black knee high boots,a silver with redlining skirt that went down mid thigh and wasn't covering her front, her rapier attached to her waist by a large leather belt with various straps. A black leather corsage covering her stomach and white leather bra cups covering her c-cup breast. Two silver spaulders with white sleeves underneath them and metal vambracers,a small white cape cover the length of her right arm while a large black cape covered her whole right side to her waist line. A neck guard with a pointed hood that was attached covered her head with her trademark red colored hair resting underneath it and in front of her shoulders. Naruto also found out that his mother wielded a Saijo O Wazamono(Supreme Grade Sword) called Tsuyoi Shin'nen(Firm Belief), his kaa-chan told him it was a family heirloom passed down generation to generation for many centuries.

Naruto himself wore simple black cargo pants with knee high boots, a white hoodie over a red under short sleeved shirt. His face was round like his mothers and had "cute in his mother's opinion" whisker marks…they were manly damn it, he too had his mothers red hair though his was spiking out uncontrollably with to some hair framing his jaw line(like minato) and a small pony tail forming in the back of his head.

Although despite it all Naruto enjoyed his life on the run with his mother as he had been to many places and seen many interesting things. His mother had begun teaching him her fencing style at the young age of four due to her life as a wanted woman so she wanted to make sure that if forced to he was capable of protecting himself, although when Naruto had stated he wanted to get stronger so he could protect her she nearly hugged the life out of him.

When he was 8 she had started teaching him the basics of kenbunshoku haki and busoshokuhaki, something she picked up in her years as a wondering swords woman. Due to the intense training haki required Naruto was growing taller and stronger then others in his age group as he was 4ft 7in despite his young age and That made him happy, yeah life with his mother was good.

A year later Kushina and Naruto found themselves in a bit of a pickle when they stumbled upon a base, and in that base what he and Kushina discovered disgusted and enraged them as slavers were using that base to hold humans in cages like they were animals waiting to be sold and shipped off to some distant land. Kushina wanting to rescue the captured people prepared herself but stopped as she remembered Naruto and look to his position and saw he too was readying himself for the upcoming battle but saw that he was nervous and a little shaky.

She mentally kicked herself for forgetting that this was his first battle, and as much as she now wanted to stop him from joining her, she knew that it would just be better in the long run to have him battle now and gain some experience then to battle latter in life against stronger opponents with no experience. So grabbing his hand to gain his attention, she looked into his eyes and gave him an assuring look to calm his nerves. Naruto stared into his mothers eyes that were filled with love and assurance, he steeled himself as he remembered his mother was with him and would make sure nothing bad happened to him. He then gave her a small appreciative smile and then looked on to the slavers with a fierce determination that promised pain. Kushina seeing this gave out a small giggle and then she to gained the same look in her eyes.

She started counting how many slavers there were, how well were they armed, and who was in charge. 18 slavers not to bad, she can make this work. Kushina looked to Naruto and pointed out the 4 men closest to them and said "naru-chan you see those 4" he looks over to where she's pointing and sees 4 scrawny men that just looked quite pathetic. "Yeah kaa-chan I see em, what about them?" "well your going to be fighting them while I fight the rest"she says that while motioning to 14 others who looked the total opposite to his 4. He takes in the looks of the slavers his mom is going to be fighting…then looks to the ones he will be fighting. He deadpans and looks to his mother with a face that asked"are you serious", Kushina seeing this rubs the back of her head sheepishly and says" ahahaha ok ok sorry you can also get that guy"she points to the man that looked to be a challenge(at least for Naruto). Looking over the man, Naruto sighs and nods his head in acceptance.

Kushina once again looks to Naruto and says "naru-chan these men will not hesitate to kill you so in return do not hesitate to kill them".Hearing this shocks him a little but quickly accepts it once he hears his mother "do not feel bad naru-chan these men deserve to die…just remember for every life you take you will have saved 10 more, as it is true with those people over there" she points to the cages where the future slaves are at. Kushina notices that the slavers backs were facing Naruto and her.

Kushina takes off for the closest of her share of the slavers. Naruto seeing his mother take off he runs to the nearest opponent and in a single thrust kills the man by piercing the heart, he pauses for a moment stunned at how easy it was to take a life but regains focus, still not being detected he quickly repeats the motion with another and now 2 are and down 3 to go. Unfortunately the others by now have been made fully aware of the assault by two mysterious strangers as well as their downed comrades and prepare to strike them back with a vengeance… but they were not prepared to fight some one of Kushina's caliber and they were quickly overwhelmed.

Back with Naruto he was now surrounded by his opponents an got in to a stance to counter attack, knees bent sword arm out pointing down with the unused arm in and waited for them to strike, and he didn't wait long as the scrawny guy to his left launched his attacked by running with his standard cutlass over his own head readying to swing down with all his might and Naruto let him as he sidestepped the attack to his left while parrying the attack to his right an making his opponent open for a counter. He once again thrust his blade into the body of his foe but this time thrusting up threw the mans right kidney and out the other side, the light in the mans eyes start to dim as Naruto slides the body off his rapier. His opponents stood in shock as another comrade was killed and so effortlessly by a child no older then 12(in their eyes), but the shock passes as their anger builds and they to run to the child at the same time but they were blinded by rage and made the fatal mistake of attacking him from the same side and less then an arms length away from each other and it cost them dearly.

As the last scrawny male to Naruto's right leaps into the air preparing an overhead strike while his last comrade to the left of Naruto attempts a large baseball swing with a battle axe hoping to chop off Naruto's head, but Naruto lowers his rapier pointing it towards the ground all the while stepping backwards and parrying the ax swing that just missed his neck towards his opponent in the air with the unguarded stomach. Naruto steps to his left to avoid the falling body while the now former ax-wielder stumbles backwards in shock of killing his own comrade an stares at the unmoving body not noticing Naruto approaching his position until it was to late and he was dead.

Naruto looks around him to confirm the deaths of his opponents and nods to himself then looks to see if his mom is still fighting but just see's her waiting for him as she had already defeated her share. He sighs to himself while mentally taking note to double his training to quickly catch up to his mothers level of swordsmanship. Kushina and Naruto freed the captives and took anything of value"which wasn't much" as they prepare to leave Kushina without warning grabs Naruto into a tight embrace only a mother can give and rubs his back while telling him soothing words naruto gives into the embrace and relaxes he asks "will I ever get use to it "killing" I mean…" she looks him in the eye "yes…yes you will…but that doesn't make it any less easier. The weight of taking a life is heavy, that is the cost of this life style, you will just have to learn to endure." They stop hugging and prepare to leave. Naruto grabs his mothers hand to take in the solace of her warmth and they continued on their way to their next destination.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or OnePiece they belong to Kishimoto and Oda respectively. if i did i would replace Jiraiya's perverted giggle with gigiddy**

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Chapter 2: The End is Just the Beginning

Its been 1 week since Naruto's 10 birthday and over the last year he has grown to 5ft1in and has polished his previous swordsmanship skills even more. He and his kaa-chan have been going around to "seedy" place were pirates were the dominate force, in order to give Naruto more experience in his all around life skills. They also did some bounty hunting, and did pretty well on that front, but do to kushina's wanted status Naruto was forced to hand over the bounties. The faces on the marines were priceless when ever Naruto brought in his haul.

Though he and his mother now stood amongst a crowd in Lougetown , and were facing a platform that looks to be use for execution. "Hey kaa-chan...why are we here again?" Kushina sighed "because naru-chan we have come to pay our respect to Gol D. Rodgers" "but he's not dead yet?" "yes I know… but we have also come to witness the death of a great man whose passing will affect the world for better or for worse." Naruto looks around and was amazed by the sheer amount of people that came. He didn't know if they came to to cheer for Rodgers death or to mourn it, but any guy that can fill a city with this amount of people must be as great as his kaa-chan believes him to be.

He was looking around when he noticed Rodgers being escorted to the platform, and soon everyone else does too and quiets down. It amazed him once more the effect this guy had on people as the entire city was quiet and you could hear each step the pirate king took echo out towards the crowd. Rodgers arrives to his execution site and started kneeling down in the place that will forever be immortalized as his death spot and kept his head down in acceptance of whats to come. The guard to his right ask Rodgers "any last words?" Rodgers asked "can you take off the shackles?" the guard shakes his head"no"

As the guards prepare to strike him down a random citizen in the crowd asked "Hey Pirate King where'd you leave your treasure!" and that sparked a flame inside everyone as the whole place became alive asking him about it too. Rodgers smiles at the site before him and says "My wealth and treasures? If you want it, I'll let you have it...search for it! I left all of it at that place!" and with that Rodgers died with a big shit eating grin at what he just accomplished…the start of a new age.

To say Naruto was stunned and incredibly impressed was an understatement. This mere pirate…no this KING in his last moments possibly inspired and effected the lives of millions all across the world, as he witnessed the town filled with thousands of people erupt into life and and rushed off as if that treasure was going to disappear.

In this moment Naruto knew what he wanted, to be like this man, to be as great…no to be even greater then this man and become a legend all his own. Naruto smiled at that thought and let out a wistful sigh.

Though he then regains his senses and noticed some thing wrong with his mother who had been silent for awhile now, and looked to her only to see her barely holding herself up as she was trying to hold back her tears but was failing miserably so at it. Naruto quickly grabbed his kaa-chans hand and lead her to a quite and secluded place where they can be alone. Kushina lifelessly followed her son's lead in walking but otherwise was totally unresponsive to the world.

They had been walking for about 20 minutes now and he had found a bench in a seclude alleyway an were finally alone. Naruto lead his mother to the bench sat her down and without any warning he hugged her as she had always done for him. He brought his hand up to her back and started rubbing in a circular motion in an attempt to calm her down all the while telling her everything was gonna be alright. Kushina couldn't hold the tears back anymore as she broke down into her son's embrace and her pent up emotions were pouring out like a broken dam.

Naruto didn't know why she was in this state. Was it the death of Rodgers that affected her so, or was it something else? He didn't know if his mother knew him or how she would as she never really talked about the past unless he asked and right now she looked like she was incapable of proper thought much less speech. So he waited until she was emotionally stable and rested to begin asking his questions.

Kushina felt miserable at this moment, one of her friends had just been executed in public for the world to see. She just stared at the site where her friend Gol had just died at and her brain just shut down in a attempt to rein in her emotions, she felt her eyes water up and paid no mind to the stray tears running down her cheeks, she just didn't care right now. She didn't know what was happening now she just felt someone gently sit her down and then hug her,she tensed but then took notice that it was her son who was trying to assure her. Then she just broke down in front of him and took comfort in his gentle embrace.

Naruto look stared into the sky, that at some point turn dark, and looked to the moon. He didn't know how long they had been there and he knew they still needed to find a place to stay, so he looked to his mother to see if she was ok now but found she had fallen asleep at some point . So he picked her up in his arms and left to find shelter for the night.

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Kushina woke up to the sun in her eyes and birds chirping ever so happily with the smell of bacon in the air. A beautiful morning yes? No…because she felt like shit. she felt exhausted both physically and mentally due to the events yesterday. She didn't even know where she was, by the looks of it she was in an inn, the last she remembered was crying on her son. Who by the way just walked out from behind a door with a tray of food for her and him judging by the amount of food there presumably. "good morning kaa-san, I hope you feel better today and are up for some breakfast in bed with a side of coffee to start the day." Kushina mentally thanked Kami or whatever god out there for blessing her with such a kind, wonderful, and considerate son. "Yes naru-chan...i do feel much better. Thank you for asking, I just needed to get "that" out of my system yesterday." "no problem" he passed her some food and they began to eat.

Once they were done he gave her a look that was filled with unasked questions waiting to be unleashed on her, but he hadn't as he wasn't sure if she ready to answer them. Kushina seeing the look on his face, sighed and began speaking, wanting get this out now." I know your curious as to why I was in such a mood yesterday so i'll just come out and say it" she inhaled some air to ready herself for the coming onslaught that was her son. "During my years as a wondering swordswoman/"pirate"(she did't think of herself as one) I met Gol D. Rodgers and his crew by coincidence when the pirate shiki and his crew attacked the town that the Rodger pirates were using as a temporary home base, and by chance I had arrived earlier that day to resupply and rest. Shiki's Golden Lion Pirates attacked the town, whether they were the town folk or the Rodger Pirates they attacked indiscriminately.

Seeing them do this I joined the fray. I fought for a while slaying many of Shiki's crew until Shiki himself took notice of me, and challenged me to a one on one duel. I accepted hoping that I would defeat him like all the others before him and stop his crews attack on the town. As a practitioner of the sword I was his better, but he had devil fruit powers that allowed him to even out the playing field. After 20 minutes or so of fighting I forced him into defeat by disarming him and placing my blade's tip into the area where his heart was. I then gave him the option of death or retreat. He choose to retreat and left the town with his crew.

The Rodger pirates and their captain who had been watching my match along with Shiki's crew,who had already left with their captain in defeat, had started cheering for me during it. A giant party broke out to celebrate over their and my victory and we drank to our newfound friendship…and well the rest of the night is a blur, but after that I had stayed with them on that island for about half a year until I continued on my way and we met every now and then over the course of the rest of my years as a wonderer. But despite our occasional meetings Gol, Rey, and the rest of the crew and I stayed great friends." "especially ray and I" she mentally added not wanting her son to know that part of her story just yet.

"Although once I became pregnant with you, we never came across each other again. I hadn't heard of them until i heard stories about their reaching Raftel and Gol's new tittle of Pirate King.

Naruto was in awe and was starting to see his kaa-chan in a new light when she said she defeated Shiki "The Flying Pirate" in a duel and became friends with the Rodger Pirates."Wow kaa-chan I didn't know you were that strong(were being the operative word here)." she let out a hmmph "just because I've been busy raising you doesn't mean I'm any less strong then I was back then. If anything these years raising you have only given me the chance to increase some of my technique based skills and my haki. I just haven't come across a situation where I have needed to use them."

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2 years later

Naruto and his mother went back to living away from civilization for the first year due to the drastic increase in pirates and the general thing that comes with pirating: pillaging, raping, and killing. rinse wipe repeat. It made trying to live in peace difficult when some pirate attacked the town you live in nearly everyday… and it really wears you down having to kick some pathetic wannabe pirate's ass every time he hits on your mother. Not that she's incapable of doing so her self but the last guy that hit on her and actually grabbed her ass, is now wishing she had killed him. He had never seen or thought it possible to push someones head up there own ass, but his kaa-chan proved him and everyone else there wrong, although that man was pretty long so he supposed that helped or was it the fact that she broke and possibly crushed that mans ribs hmmm o well, but back to the point he really didn't want to see that ever again so he took it upon himself to give pirates(himself really) mercy and kill them before they ended up finding out what there own rectum looks like.

Anyway since the increase in pirating, marines have been hard pressed to keep up with this New Pirate Age, as they were calling it, so many people suffered oneway or another. His kaa-chan got tired of it after a couple of months and took him to live on a mountain to get away form this pirate craze and wait for it to die down.

She had upped his training even more not that he was displeased with getting stronger but…she was a bit of a saddist now that he got to an age where he can wear weights safely without hampering his growth and she took full advantage of that. He also increased his swordsmanship skills to the point where he was capable of launching a wave like attack from his blade but he still needed to perfect that, but his kaa-chan was impressed that he was capable of that at his age. Now that the craze has died down they packed up and moved out to their next destination.

Kushina had taken him to west blue to introduce him to even harsher experiences, knowing that this side of the Grand Line was tougher then the other. Although they were surprised by what they saw on their first island they came to as before them a girl no older the 8 or 9 was being chased by townsfolk and some bounty hunters by the looks of it. The little girl happened to trip on some rocks and fell on her stomach scraping her knees a little. The people were about to tie her up with some rope, but were stopped by kushina stepping in front of the girl with her blade drawn thus effectively stopping them. While his mother dealt with the chasers he took care of the girl who didn't seem to keen on being to close to him." Its ok I'm not gonna hurt you I'm just gonna patch you up real quick k." He finished with a smile that showed no hostility or lies, just warmth. The girl seeing no deception nodded and let him get to work, while he was doing that she looked to where to the woman was found half the people on the ground knocked out or in some cases clutching their sweet spot and crying in pain(the guys who thought it a good idea to try and cope a feel).

She didn't know why these to people helped her out or what they wanted in return but she wasn't going to let her guard down like the last time, where that granny just gave her a sweet innocent smile as the bounty hunters came for her, no way was she going threw that again. When she looked to the woman and she found all the people previously chasing her on the ground with the woman no where in sight, she turned to find her only to come face to face with her. She promptly let out a startled scream and fell to her but."Kaa-chan be nice and don't scare her like that" "ahahaha sorry sorry, I was just wondering why those people were chasing her. Ne Ne tell me little girl why were they chasing you? Oh and by the way my name is Kushina Uzumaki, and this is my son Naruto Uzumaki. Whats your name?" Kushina asked. The little girl was a bit shocked to find out they didn't know who she was, as she had a wanted poster out for her everywhere. This made her a little happy to know these people weren't trying to get close to her just to sell her out, at least for now. She pessimistically thought.

"Hello...my name is Nico Robin, nice to meet you." she said with a fake and guarded smile that both Uzumaki's noticed and raised an eyebrow at.


End file.
